The United States and Kenya co-hosts the 2025 African Chiefs of Defense Conference (ACHOD) in Nairobi May 28-29, 2025, bringing together senior military leaders from approximately 37 African nations to exchange knowledge, strengthen partnerships, and address shared security challenges across the continent.

U.S. chaplain delegation led by U.S. Africa Command Chaplain Colonel Karen Meeker conducted collaborative meetings to bring stability through faith and new avenues of collaboration in support of the warfighter while in Cairo, Egypt, March 17, 2025.

NAIROBI, Kenya – Among the flurry of tactical live fires and squad movement drills, air ground integration and even the humanitarian initiatives at exercise Justified Accord 2025 (JA25), lies the one thing those who serve in any armed force must follow: The Law. The Law of Armed Conflict, or LOAC, is a key aspect of training for any military. JA25’s academics course aimed at learning from the international legal lessons of previous wars in an effort to reduce the amount of human suffering in future conflicts. “The soldier’s rules are a broad set of rules that we have pulled from the large breadth of international law,” said U.S. Army Maj. Tim Olliges, an operational law attorney assigned to U.S. Army Southern European Task Force, Africa (SETAF-AF), the lead U.S. Army command and planner of JA25. “The LOAC is extensive and can be complex, so we pull out the ten most critical concepts that every soldier, right down to the private, should know before they go into combat.”